Sentosa Masterplanning, Singapore

Project Summary

As part of the multidisciplinary design team for re-imagining Sentosa Island, bioSEA served as the ecological consultant for the lead designer, WOHA Architects, influencing the landscape design and quantifying the ecological benefits behind the design.

To quantify habitat biodiversity for the proposed development, we used the Singapore Biodiversity Assessment Metric (SBAM), which measures biodiversity changes based on habitat area, condition, and ecological values. We estimated a 3.4% gain in biodiversity for terrestrial and freshwater habitats compared to the existing baseline. Additionally, the development is forecasted to result in an 8% net increase in greenery, equivalent to a 3.7-hectare increase in green habitats.

In both terrestrial and marine environments, the proposed development would increase the number of habitat types from 15 to 20, leading to a 33% increase in habitat diversity.

We also analyzed the biodiversity change for the proposed development by calculating the existing species richness in both terrestrial and marine habitats based on past studies. Using our knowledge of species resilience, colonization, and migration, we projected changes in species abundance with the proposed development.

Using the Ecosystem Services Identification & Inventory (ESII) tool, carbon scaling equations and ENVI-met tool, bioSEA quantified changes of four ecosystem services in the study site in relation to the proposed development.

The proposed development offers several significant environmental benefits:

• An 18% increase in solar heat reduction.
• A 4% increase in carbon storage.
• A 7% increase in the removal of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from the air.
• A 7% increase in the removal of particulate matter (PM10) from the air.

We also predicted that the proposed development will lower the average site temperature by 0.2°C, helping to counteract climate-inducted temperature increases in the future. Additionally, the development will reduce mean radiant temperature (MRT) by 2.65 to 10.44°C, decreasing thermal stress from ‘strong’ to ‘moderate’ levels with an average MRT reduction of 7.81°C.